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Magic Speculation: The New Modern

Welcome to our new Magic Card Speculation segment written by Magic enthusiast Brandon Susens.
So it happened. KCI has been banned. Personally I still think that is a mistake, and that we will see izzet phoenix decks dominating the format soon. But what do I know?

The good news for us however is that there will be a lot of people building new modern decks soon. That means money being spent, and a lot of good targets for investment. Let’s take a look at a few decks and the cards I would invest in.

First up is storm. Storm is currently sitting at about 2.5% of the metagame according to Mtggoldfish which is not a huge amount. However, all the combo players who used to play KCI made up over 6% of the format which is huge. I think the biggest reason people weren’t playing storm is because KCI was just flat out better. It was so much more resilient to hate that it was the clear choice.

The other big thing storm has going for it is that it’s dirt cheap to build. Currently sitting at barely above $300. To compare, that Izzet Phoenix deck that I think will be dominating costs almost $900. The reason this deck is so cheap is that almost everything in it is a common or uncommon, and most of those have been printed into the ground. The one exception to this is Manamorphose which is a $20 common despite 2 printings. I don’t know that a common can go much higher, and there is always risk of a reprint so I don’t like that card for investment.

Instead I suggest investing in Baral, Chief of Compliance.

Baral is the engine that really makes this deck go right now. He discounts spells so that storm can go off, and occasionally provides card filtering with remand. It is also the only rare in the deck that only has one printing. Star city games is currently listed as sold out which as I’ve mentioned before is always a good sign.

Baral is currently priced at $6 and I would expect prices to double with an increase in this deck’s popularity.

Next up I’m going to roll two decks into one and discuss Titan Shift and Amulet Titan. Amulet Titan just won the SCG open in Worcester so the deck clearly has some gas. These two combined make up about 4.5% of the metagame and I think that will go up soon as well.

The Amulet Titan version will currently cost you about $660 and the Titan shift version only costs $415. Those are some appealing prices that will send a lot of players in their direction so let’s look at some cards I expect to go up.

Of course we have to Prime Time, it’s the name sake of both decks. Unfortunately there have been a lot of printings of this card which makes investing a little more difficult. However I think the best bet with this card is going for foil. The Modern Masters and Iconic Master versions both have very low foil multipliers.

Both of those printings can be purchased in foil for less than $13 and especially with an uptick in popularity they should both be commanding $20 each.

Then there is the Grand Prix Promo.

I still haven’t decided how much I like the art on this one, but I’m sure the supply of these will be much lower than all the other versions combined. The going rate on TCGplayer seems to be about $18 and SCG has them listed as sold out at $20. I would expect this version to land between $25-30 when the dust settles.

Wayword Swordtooth is another new card that’s making a big splash in modern. A 3 mana 5/5 expertly dodges a lot of removal. Plus it’s part of the engine that makes this whole deck tick, and while it has a drawback the city’s blessing is very easy for this deck to get.

Currently you can snag a foil copy of this for less than $10 and that’s my target. SCG is completely sold out of the shiny stuff even though they still have 25 of the standard printing so I think with the prices so low people will go for those.

Even though this card isn’t quite a 4 of in most versions of the deck, my target price for both foil versions is $15.

Finally I want to talk a little bit about real estate.

Cinder Glade is an automatic 4 of in the Titan Shift version of the deck and I think it will be as long as Valakut is legal in modern. Every version of this card is sold out in NM on SCG. However on TCGplayer you can still buy the foil for under $5. That is insane.

The best comparison I can come up with is Inspiring vantage. It’s also a 4 of dual land that’s only played in one deck in modern. However it isn’t fetchable so it has way less appeal to Commander fans. Yet a foil of that card still costs over $8.

Sure burn is a more popular deck but I think these two will start to become much closer in popularity.

My target price for foil Cinder Glades is $9.

Well that’s all I have for this week. Is there a deck that you think is going to step up to the plate after the KCI banning that I didn’t discuss? Let me know it the comments. I’ll see you all next time.

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